I’m getting into farmer’s carries as I try to improve my posture. I figured I’d do them with a trap bar or KBs (suitcase carries), but my gym has these as well.
Any thoughts on the best instrument for posture improvement? Thanks boys.
The bottom style are much easier to load and use. Only issue is you can drop them on your feet/ankles.
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Good to know man. Do you think the instability (given that they aren’t connected) is a good or bad thing for posture?
I have no knowledge about posture, but as far as farmer’s walks go, you want to use farmer’s walk implements vs anything else.
I used to have poor posture, I have found the best way to fix it is to fix the muscle imbalances, I.e. I used to walk with a forward bend at the waist, I found out having weak hamstrings helped to cause it, as I strengthened my hamstrings, the forward bend went away and I walk more upright. I also used to have a much more rounded back, similar to kyphosis (maybe it is but Ive never been diagnosed) and with shoulders rounded forward. I used to have a pretty damn strong chest but a weak upper back (weak lower traps and rhomboids). I corrected that by strengthening those antagonist muscles in the upper back.
The short answer to fixing posture in my amateur, non medical doctor brain, is to fix muscle weaknesses causing the poor posture.
Farmers could fix it, but not if it doesn’t correct whatever imbalance you have
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Makes sense. Sounds similar to me man. What are the specific movements you incorporated?
Anything that can strengthen hamstrings would be good, most people that aren’t serious lifters have weak hamstrings (myself included until about 8 months ago, and I’ve been lifting for 18 years). I really like banded hamstring curls (with brief pause at top of ROM and west side barbell inverse hamstring curls. Both of those two things really helped me out, among MANY other things.
For mid back, snatch grip deadlifts, wide grip rows, carrying anything high on your chest and walking with it. Banded pull aparts are good but you need to focus on contracting your low trap and rhomboids, and not so much on your rear delts.
That’s what worked for me, but it was really about a 1-2 year long process
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@wsmwannabe my shoulders are kinda rolled forward and my upper back is definitely more forward. My posture has been really bad for years. I am a way stronger puller (from any angle) than I am pusher (from any angle)
Any ideas why that would be? I do have a really long torso
Without any good context of lifting style or history, or any photos, I’m just guessing it would be under developed mid/upper back, which, along with underdeveloped hamstrings I feel is pretty common.
I’ve always had a VERY strong back, but it was all strictly lats. I had no lower traps or rhomboids to speak of. I was a mid 500’s deadlift we with no mid or upper back or hamstrings, which just goes to show how strong my quads and lats are (not that 550 is a fantastic deadlift, but that’s a lot for the dumbass gym bro that I was)
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I feel those are strong points (when considering what else I have, not necessarily anything special) but wouldn’t hurt to try and get stronger lower traps, and I guess everything else
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Mind elaborating on this one? You mean something like a KB carry?
Do you do this before heavy stuff (priming), or would you actually build a workout around movements like these (or finish with 'em)?
Like I said, I don’t really have anything to go off of, but in my limited experience, rounded shoulders are usually underdeveloped mid and upper back
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Sorry, I was thinking more of sandbag carries or keg carries, but make sure you’re pulling it into your body in such a way that it highly activated your mid back
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@wanna_be This graphic I just downloaded might be helpful. I’m gonna focus on rhomboids/lower traps with pullaparts now. Been doing them forever but never felt they did anything.
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If it’s your weakness, attack it like it’s a main lift. That’s what I would do. Don’t overdo it, because that’s asking for injuries, but definitely make sure it’s a focus of yours
Awesome man, we actually do have a sandbag at my gym and I was just checking it out today. Thanks brother
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That’s a good graphic, when you’re doing your pull aparts, pinch your shoulder blades together at the end of your ROM to really activate those muscles. Do a brief, half to one second pause when pinching shoulder blades.
100 lb sandbag should be more than enough, give it 30-60seconds with the carries for 3-4 runs, as you get more developed, I would slightly increase weight. Not time or number of runs
I’ll try some new stuff. I feel like my back and traps is the only thing that looks like I actually lift 
guess it’s time to make it even bettererer